Spanish filmmaker Luis Buñuel thought he was destined for stardom during the surrealism movement but is left with nothing. He is offered to film a documentary about one of the poorest areas in Spain, Las Hurdes, but he has no money. His friend, the sculptor Ramón Acín, buys a lottery ticket with the promise that he will pay for the film, he wins and keeps his promise. Reality, memories of his childhood, Salvador Dalí and dreams are mixed in his mind, endangering the film and his friendship with Ramón. From there will arise the Buñuel of the future.

“Buñuel in the Labyrinth of the Turtles” is an oddity: a feature-length cartoon based on the true story about the making of a 27-minute documentary. It was an audacious choice to use such an expressionistic medium to examine how surrealist filmmaker Luis Buñuel bent reality in the making of the 1933 documentary “Las Hurdes - Tierra Sin Pan” (English title: Land Without Bread).

“The soundtrack is as contradictory as its main character, Luis Buñuel – a somewhat schizophrenic world that moves from atonalism to more conventional tonal music, and from the comedy of Fellini to minimalist sounds. The main theme, Buñuel’s Waltz, is a melody we hear in very different contexts, including the carefree and cocky air of La Edad De Oro or the pain of Laberinto. It was very important that the melody could be recognized independently of the musical context, because each of those scenes explains something about Bunuel, and we wanted all of them to share the same DNA.” ( Arturo Cardelùs)

Arturo Cardelùs won Best Music Award at the Málaga Film Festival 2019 for Buñuel en el laberinto de las tortugas